Crypto Baton Rouge NFTs

Whether or not you have adopted it or invested in it, you’ve
probably heard a lot in the past few years about cryptocurrency,
like market-leader Bitcoin.


More recently, you’ve probably heard a lot of buzz about NFTs:
digital versions of artworks that are all the rage in
sophisticated tech savvy circles and are sold online and can be
purchased only with crypto.


Are you able to wrap your mind around either of these concepts?
Is it important to understand really what they are and how they
work? Is it all just a passing fad or is it the future pathway to
wealth as crypto advocates claim in which case should you get in
the market now while the getting’s good?


Stephanie Riegel puts these questions to Will Haynie, founder and
co-owner of Pelicoin.  Pelicoin is a network of secure
cryptocurrency ATMs with more than 35 machines in five states in
the South.


Will and his brother founded Pelicoin in 2016, after playing
around in the Bitcoin market for several years prior, and it has
quickly grown to become the largest network of cryptocurrency
ATMs in the Gulf South.


Pelicion’s ATMs enable users to quickly and securely turn cash
into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum. Will
is a native of Shreveport and a graduate of LSU, who has been
involved with several business ventures and has lived and worked
in Richmond, Nashville, Alaska and Zambia. 


Mya Parker is a Baton Rouge NFT artist. She's 15 years old and a
student at Zachary High School, where among other things, she is
a self described "mature investor" who is building wealth through
the sale of her digital art as NFTs.


If you're not totally clear what an NFT actually is, it's simply
a piece of art that is created digitally, on a computer, rather
than on a canvas. You can think of it as something you'd do in
Photoshop. Some NFTs are complex and kinetic while others are
simple static line drawings. The biggest to date are a series of
images called Bored Apes who have their own nautical-themed
society called the Bored Ape Yacht Club. 


Mya got into the NFT market in 2021 and already is selling her
NFTs, which is actually a big deal. Most of the hundreds of
thousands of NFTs on NFT marketplaces like Open Sea sit there
forever and never sell.


From the outside, Baton Rouge might seem like the capital city of
the state that is  consumed by politics, the LSU Tigers, and
complaints about gridlocked streets. But we're also on the
cutting edge of technology, futuristic finance, and art.


Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the
Boulevard. You can find photos from this show by Erik
Otts at our website itsbatonrouge.la


There's more lunchtime conversation about Baton Rouge's unique
and perhaps surprising place in the worldwide NFT marketplace at
https://itsbatonrouge.la/2022/03/16/token-travel/ 


 


See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.